Paper products are a staple of every day life. Paper products are used as bath tissue, facial tissue, paper toweling, table napkins, etc. Such paper products are made by depositing a slurry of cellulosic fibers in an aqueous carrier from a headbox. The aqueous carrier is removed, leaving the cellulosic fibers to form an embryonic web and dried to form a paper sheet. The cellulosic fibers may be dried conventionally, i.e., using press felts, or dried by through air drying.
Particularly preferred through air drying utilizes a through air drying belt having an essentially continuous network made of a photosensitive resin with discrete deflection conduits therethrough. The essentially continuous network provides an imprinting surface which densifies a corresponding essentially continuous network into the paper being manufactured. The discrete, isolated deflection conduits of the through air drying belt forms domes in the paper. The domes are low density regions in the paper and provide caliper, bulk, and softness for the paper. Through air drying on a photosensitive resin belt has numerous advantages, as illustrated by the commercially successful Bounty paper towel and Charmin Ultra bath tissue, products, both sold by the assignee of the present invention.
It has been found that paper made on such a belt according to commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 4,637,859 issued Jan. 20, 1987 to Trokhan, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference, has the advantageous property that the size of the domes is directly related to the extensibility of the resulting paper. Desirable and relatively greater extensibilities can be obtained from a relatively coarser pattern of larger domes in the paper.
However, with the benefit of the relatively greater extensibility gained from the coarse pattern of larger domes comes a drawback. Particularly, as the domes become larger, and appear coarser, the visual impression of softness is diminished. Therefore, one must choose between two desirable attributes--relatively greater extensibility or a relatively softer appearance.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to decouple these two properties, i.e., a soft appearance and extensibility, which were interrelated in the prior art. It is further an object of this invention to provide a through air dried paper having both relatively large discrete domes, and having a soft appearance.